This invention relates to safety control apparatus for coke oven batteries. More particularly, it relates to an automatic interlocking control system to insure the safe operation of a coke oven pushing sequence.
A coke oven battery comprises a plurality, e.g., 50 or more, of ovens contiguously aligned. A pusher machine is supported on rails disposed parallel to the battery on one side of the ovens and is provided with door-removing means and a ram for pushing coke out of any oven. A coke guide machine is supported on rails disposed parallel to the battery on the side of the battery opposite to the pusher machine. The guide machine is provided with door-removing means and a coke guide. The coke guide guides coke as it is pushed out of an oven and into a railroad car. This car is referred to as a "hot car" and is supported on rails disposed parallel to and adjacent to the coke guide machine rails.
Coke ovens are pushed periodically, e.g., every 16 hours after loading with coal. In order to prevent any section of the battery from cooling, the oven pushing sequence is arranged so that only ovens that are relatively distant from each other are consecutively pushed. For example, the pushing sequence may specify that oven Nos. 3, 13, 23, etc., be consecutively pushed.
Before an oven is pushed, each of the machine operators must be certain that his machine is positioned with its door-removing apparatus aligned with the oven scheduled to be pushed. Next, each operator removes the door on his side of the oven and stores this door on his respective machine. The guide machine operator must next move his machine along the tracks until the coke guide is aligned with the open oven. If the hot car is in position to receive coke, the pusher can then begin to push coke with his ram.
Because of the physical configuration of both a coke pusher and a guide machine, the operator of either machine may be uncertain whether his machine is aligned with the oven he believes is scheduled to be pushed. Thus, prior coke pushing control systems provided each of these machines with a sensing device to enable the operator to determine which oven his machine was opposite.
One of the devices comprised means positioned on both sides of each oven for mechanically actuating counters on the pusher and guide machines as these machines were driven past the ovens.
Another device comprised electromagnetic sensing means on each machine that counted the ovens as the machine traveled by them. If either of these counters were to skip, or receive a spurious signal from another source, the entire system would malfunction.
Still another prior art pushing control system comprised a central control station that received pulses from the moving pusher and guide machine. Agreement between the number of pulses received and the number dialed at the central control station resulted in the release of interlocking safety devices.
The success of the last-named prior art control system was predicated upon the dial operator knowing where the pusher and guide machines were initially. The dial operator then had to send out either one or two pulses to control the direction of machine travel. Next, a number was dialed to control the number of pulses to be received to indicate proper oven alignment. The high probability of error in such a system is obvious.
It is an object of this invention to provide a control system for a coke oven battery that is independent of mechanical and/or electromagnetic means that counts the ovens that each machine passes in order to know which oven that machine is opposite.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an improved interlocking control system for a coke oven battery.